Of course, they could have been paying more in taxes all along; the IRS won't jail you for slipping them an extra five or ten grand. Oddly enough, most liberals engage in the same tax-minimization behavior as people who proclaim their distaste for taxes.

But perhaps it wasn't explicit enough that liberals were permitted to give more of their hard-earned pay to the state than the minimum demanded; or perhaps it wasn't convenient enough to do so.

A new bill just introduced -- The Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Bill (seriously, that's the unofficial name) -- will help our despondent liberal friends pay that additional 10% tithe (or more) to the StateChurch that they've always wanted to pay but just didn't see what box to enter their bonus largesse into.

Posted by: Ace at 08:49 AM | Comments (17)
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Why, his opinion is nearly as informed as Katie Couric's!

It is said that generals always fight the last war. But when David Petraeus came to town it was senators – on both sides of the aisle – who battled over the Iraq war of 2004-2006. That war has little in common with the war we are fighting today.

I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous.

The change goes far beyond the statistical decline in casualties or incidents of violence. A young Iraqi translator, wounded in battle and fearing death, asked an American commander to bury his heart in America. Iraqi special forces units took to the streets to track down terrorists who killed American soldiers. The U.S. military is the most respected institution in Iraq, and many Iraqi boys dream of becoming American soldiers. Yes, young Iraqi boys know about "GoArmy.com."

As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.

Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.

And of course there's more.

It's not just Michael Yon, of course. Jules Crittendon has a round-up of Arab/Muslim/Palestinian/Egyptian reporters reacting to the April 9 anniversary of Saddam's downfall -- and praising America, and especially lambasting their fellow Muslim reporters' excusing of all of Saddam's crimes while joyously documenting every lapse of the democratic Iraqi governments that followed.

I will lift the punchiest expression of gratitude for him, but there's plenty more at the link. An Iraqi's apology to the US fighting men:

“We forsook you and betrayed you - we, whose history is an expression of massacres, conflagrations, and ruin. We killed you, and we killed our dream and aspiration of reaching the sun, the moon, and the stars - [we killed our dream] of availing ourselves of the opportunity to live as true humans, thanks to your presence.

“My dear, brave American soldier, you noble individual who traversed land and sea in order to write the story of Iraqi freedom for the first time in its modern history - you believed, in accordance with logic, self-evident truths, and rational thought, that a people who had been subjected to repression, starvation, and killing would dance for joy, and would thank Allah who sent you to them as a liberating angel. [You believed that] they would strew flowers and break out in songs of joy that would smash the chains of slavery, ignominy, and humiliation.

“Not even a writer of surrealistic [literature] or [theater of] the absurd would have imagined that the Iraqi people would revolt against their liberator and would rush ardently back to a new bondage of a different kind - that of the religious cleric, the tribal sheikh, and the gang leader. It was unthinkable that the people would go against logic, rational thought, and self-evident truths, in a mad rush towards the abyss and total ruin.

“My beloved, brave American soldier, we apologize to you, and we are saddened at our wretched and miserable selves. Since we are a people that slaughters itself, and kills one another, cutting off heads, what can you expect from us other than ingratitude, perfidy, and stabbing you in the back for the benefit of Iranian and Syrian intelligence and Al-Qaeda?…”

Wow.

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (27)
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Good stuff here from Tom Maguire, including FoxNews' observation that Obama defended his remarks -- but only those remarks which were uncontroversial, ignoring the actual remarks that have people incensed.

Plus some good snark by Kaus:

I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances--welfare and immigrants were "scapegoats," part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. ...

P.S.: Because Obama's comments are clearly a Category II Kinsley Gaffe--in which the candidate accidentally says what he really thinks--it will be hard for Obama to explain away. [He could say he was tired and it was late at night?--ed But he was similarly condescending in his big, heartfelt, well-prepared "race speech" when he explained white anger over welfare and affirmative action as a displacement of the bitterness that comes when whites

are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition ...

Obama's new restatement confirms the Marxist Deskwork interpretation of the race speech, removing any honest doubt as to his actual attitude.

Thank you. I've been talking -- as in actually, with my mouth, talking -- about this latest gaffe being almost precisely like the prepared, thought-out statement in his speech on racism, in which he did in fact say that white concerns over affirmative action's unfairness and black criminality were basically illegitimate and irrational and misdirected anger over The Man and the White Corporate Power Structure that oppresses us all. I thank Kaus for actually writing it out for me.

When he thinks it out before hand and writes it and then also unthinkingly blurts it out off-the-cuff, guess what, it's a pretty damn good indicator that that's precisely what he really believes.

Stealing more from Maguire (but there's still plenty good eatin' left on that bird!), here's Transterristal Musings with a Man on the Street interview with one of Pennsylvania's backwoods The Hills Have Eyes cannibal mutants:

By cracky, it's like the man sees into my soul!

"Thirty years ago, I had a good job in the mill in Pittsburgh. I was bringing in a good income, going to jazz clubs, discussing Proust over white wine and brie, with my gay friends of all colors. I was all for free trade, so that we could sell the steel overseas, and I never bothered to go to church, let alone actually believe in God.

"But then, the plant closed down, and I couldn't get another job. I went on unemployment, and found odd jobs here and there, but they barely paid the rent in the loft, and the payment on the Bimmer. I couldn't afford the wine and brie any more, and had to shift over to beer and brats.

"Of course, as a result, I started hanging out with the wrong crowd--the beer drinkers.

"And it wasn't just the beer. Some of them actually went out in the woods in the fall, and shot animals. And kilt 'em. With real guns!

"I was shocked, of course. For all their diversity, none of my gay friends would have ever thought of doing anything like that. But with my job loss, and lack of money for pedicures and pommade, they didn't want to hang with me any more. So I borried a twelve gauge over'n'under, and went out with my new beer-drinking animal-killing friends in the woods. And I'll tell you what, when I shot down that eight-pointer, I felt a sense of power over the helpless in a way that I hadn't since I'd been looking down on the rednecks when I had that good job in Pittsburgh, driving around town in my 528i."

And there's more there, too. He didn't even get to his new hobby of gay-bashing yet.

Posted by: Ace at 07:57 AM | Comments (39)
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Background here: Absolut's ad campaign featuring a reconquista Mexico seizing back the entire Western United States.

Heh: Skyy Vodka responds by celebrating the treaty that makes western America America.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican-America War (1846-184 . With the signing of this treaty, the United States gained control of what was to become the Golden West, including California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and parts of Colorado and New Mexico. Today, SKYY® Vodka, the number-one vodka produced in the United States, spoke out against suggestions by Absolut® Vodka to disregard that treaty, as well as the joining of Texas to the Union in 1845, as depicted in Absolut’s recent advertising.

“Like SKYY Vodka, the residents of states like California, Texas and Arizona are exceptionally proud of the fact that they are from the United States of America,” said Dave Karraker, SKYY Vodka. “To imply that they might be interested in changing their mailing addresses, as our competitor seems to be suggesting in their advertising, is a bit presumptuous.”

In the ad, an “Absolut World” is depicted where the map of North America is re-drawn with Mexico claiming much of the Western United States, negating the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, as well as the Gadsden Purchase (1853), and the independence of Texas (1836).

“Don’t get me started on the Gadsden Purchase,” continues Karraker. “I think the folks in Tucson and Yuma would be rubbed the wrong way if they hear this landmark deal was somehow nullified as suggested by Absolut, a Swedish-owned brand.”

SKYY Vodka was founded in San Francisco in 1992 and continues to be produced in the United States. Premium SKYY Vodka is made from American grain carefully selected from the Midwest and 100% pure filtered water.

I don't drink vodka (um... except for Val-U-Rite, of course), but yeah, why not, I'll never order Absolut again and Skyy's now my premium brand.

Political pandering has consequences, Absolut. Apparently I'm not progressive enough to drink your product, so I now have a less nuanced brand of choice that better fits with my narrow-minded, decidedly unhip, missionary-position vaginal-sex lifestyle.

PS, suck the barbed cock of Satan and have a nice day.

PPS, isn't Absolut a dirty filthy Scandi brand? I do believe it is. Go home, Scandis. We don't want your filthy fermented reindeer piss. I'd rather suck a bull walrus' thirty-inch dick than drink your horrible vodka.

But, of course, so would all of Absolut's executives and admen.

Secret ingredient in Absolut? Fermented walrus choad. That's a fact. Every time you drink Absolut you are, effectively, blowing a 1600-pound sea-cow's enormous turgid amphibi-schlong.

Via Instaheh.

Absolut Cock Worship: Another Absolut ad, aimed at the LGBT market, celebrates the perfect 8" male member.

It's sort of a bad idea to base your brand identity on clear-cut categories of ethnic/sexual identity, isn't it? I mean, I'm not a gay mariachi player. So I guess I can't drink Absolut, even if I were inclined to do so.

Posted by: Ace at 06:28 AM | Comments (40)
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A Saudi cleric on why he, yes, hates our freedoms, just as the Bushitler once suggested.

As David Thompson remarks, points for the frankness of the statement, as clear a distillation as you could want for the root problem of Islamism/Islamofascism.

The problem is that they want to open a debate on whether Islam is true or not, and on whether Judaism and Christianity are false or not. In other words, they want to open up everything for debate. Now they want to open up all issues for debate. That’s it. It begins with freedom of thought, it continues with freedom of speech, and it ends up with freedom of belief. So where's the conspiracy? They say: Let’s have freedom of thought in Islam... They say: I think, therefore I want to express my thoughts. I want to express myself, I want to talk and say, for example, that there are loopholes in Islam, or that Christianity is the truth. Then they will talk about freedom of belief, and say that anyone is entitled to believe in whatever he wants... If you want to become an apostate – go ahead. Fancy Buddhism? Leave Islam, and join Buddhism. No problem. That’s what freedom of belief is all about. They want freedom of everything. What they want is very dangerous.

Dangerous to tyrants, yes.

More at the link, including video and this sub-atomic psychokinetic fissonist's thoughts on the proper technique of urinating piously and with proper reverence for Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 05:56 AM | Comments (17)
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I didn't actually mention the original story, but you've probably seen it.

According to the school, the incident was fabricated.

The video isn't as conclusive as administrators claim but it does suggest fakery. Charges have been brought against the girl for bringing a false complaint.

Thanks to liberrocky.

Posted by: Ace at 05:50 AM | Comments (15)
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"Thank God we live in the quiet, little, red-neck, po-dunk, white-trash, (muffled) U...S...AAAAAAAAAA!"

Posted by: Open Blog at 03:38 AM | Comments (7)
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To paraphrase a cliche: In order to create a [tyranny] you have to break a few [laws].

Mayor Nutter likened himself and City Council members yesterday to the band of rebels who formed this country as he signed five new gun-control laws that defy the state legislature and legal precedent.

"Almost 232 years ago, a group of concerned Americans took matters in their own hands and did what they needed to do by declaring that the time had come for a change," Nutter said as he signed the bills in front of a table of confiscated weapons outside the police evidence room in City Hall.

I bet you thought I was making up his name and his claim.

Details after the break.

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 11:14 PM | Comments (36)
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Whoops, I almost forgot. Feel free to discuss in the comments. I won't be checking in until after the show (Pacific time), so please behave.

Spoiler Policy: Anything from the miniseries and the show up to and including tonight's episode is fair game; no need to warn or in some way obscure text for anything that comes from that material. However, anything you may have heard about future episodes should be kept to yourself. Thanks.

So does anyone else think that they used up their special effects budget with last week's opening two acts? When do we get Three back? And for how long will they drag out the question of the Last Cylon?

My consideration of the episode is in the extended entry. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:04 PM | Comments (46)
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To be honest that vid isn't as good as Allah's deconstruction of it. Pay attention to Obama's attempt to limit the "gaffe" to calling people "bitter."

Dude, that's the least of it and you know it. You came thisclose to saying "Religion is the opiate of the masses." You strongly implied that people "cling to their religion" only due to economic desperation, and not out of faith at all.

Allah and I were emailing about this and I said, "Well, you know, they all think that. It's the What's the Matter With Kansas? theory that has such a grip on the liberal mindset. They can't comprehend why people aren't gung-ho for socialism, so they postulate that people are 'distracted' and 'divided' by sinister forces injecting 'phony issues' (like God) into politics to keep them from voting for socialism."

Which is, yes, itself pretty much just a re-wording of "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Will this hurt Obama? I doubt it, as far as the primaries go. Because, once again: Almost all liberals believe this. Obama was just stupid enough to say it before a primary. So he'll get all the liberal votes he was going to get anyway; quite frankly, his voters won't even understand what the fuss is all about. Why shouldn't Obama say it? It's true, isn't it? Downtrodden, uneducated, backwoods smoked-porcupine-pie type people (that would be you and me) of course cling to simple concepts their tiny brains can grasp -- guns, God, patriotism, the lot of it -- because we're just not capable of understanding the complexities of a functioning socialist economic system on the European model.

The only way this hurts him is if superdelegates now realize he cannot win in November, and begin flipping for Lance Corporal Hillary Clinton. But I doubt that will happen, and anyway, the Democratic party cannot afford to not nominate Barack Obama at this point.

I don't want to say that Obama is now unelectable but he's coming perilously close to that point.

Oh, And... The turning worm. Even McCain is seizing on this, and not tepidly, either.

And even Allah has called him a crypto-Marxist, which is accurate, except for the crypto part. Psuedocryptomarxist, maybe.

He ain't really hiding it all that much.

Oh and This Is Sweet: Zombietime, who likes to show up where idiots gather and photograph their mating rituals, actually was present and snapping pictures at the event where Obama delivered this speech.

Billionaire's Row, baby!

Update [Moron Dave in Texas]: Remember when he was just trying to be a good Christian?

Educate. It's all crazy.

Posted by: Ace at 07:04 PM | Comments (67)
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